


Ginger

by celeste9



Series: February Challenge Fics [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Animal Transformation, Dog BB-8, First Kiss, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 06:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13564965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: Poe accidentally sort of adopts the assholish orange cat hanging around outside his apartment complex and ends up with a lot more than he bargained on.





	Ginger

**Author's Note:**

> Day 3: character gets turned into a cat or dog
> 
> I really wanted Poe to call Hux 'Millicent' but couldn't quite make it work, much to my regret.

It was the third morning this week Poe had seen the cat in front of his apartment complex. It was a skinny orange thing, perfectly groomed, especially considering Poe wasn’t certain yet whether anyone owned it. No collar or identifying tags, but then Poe didn’t think everyone put collars on their cats.

He had never had a cat. He didn’t know.

The cat stared at him with its big green eyes, just as it always did.

“Ginger,” Poe said to it, and walked down the sidewalk.

-

The cat was there again when Poe came home from work, but when Poe took a step towards it, the cat ran off. Poe shrugged and went inside.

-

The cat seemed skinnier the next week. Poe wondered if it actually was a stray, or if its owners had abandoned it. He put a dish of milk in the bushes and it was empty when he came back.

He had no way of knowing if the cat had drunk it, but he hoped so.

Poe put out milk and table scraps every morning and evening after that, and noticed the cat hovering sometimes, darting out of sight when Poe looked over.

“I’m not gonna hurt you, Ginger,” Poe said, but the cat still never approached until Poe was gone.

Once Poe managed to catch the cat as it lapped up the water Poe had put out, and he knelt carefully, stretching his hand, trying not to appear threatening.

The cat looked up and swiped at him, nails just catching Poe’s fingertips.

“Ow,” Poe said and winced, sucking his fingers into his mouth.

The cat didn’t run, instead giving Poe the best glare he had ever seen.

“No touching, I get it,” Poe said, and figured he would stick to cuddling BB-8.

-

It was pouring when Poe ran down the sidewalk after work, sopping wet, his umbrella completely useless where it sat forgotten by his door. He almost missed the cat in his hurry, but saw a sad little orange blur out of the corner of his eye. The cat was huddled beneath the bushes where Poe fed him, straggly and wet.

“Ginger,” Poe said in dismay, certain now the cat had nowhere to go.

He looked at the cat, and the cat looked at him.

“Come on,” Poe said, and the cat followed him into his apartment building, up the stairs to his door.

It scurried in past Poe’s feet and then sat there staring at him, utterly bedraggled, as Poe locked his door and took off his soaked jacket. The thing looked small and miserable and Poe contemplated that there was nothing so pathetic in the entire world as a wet cat.

(It still, however, managed a degree of haughtiness as it looked at Poe. Poe could respect that.)

Poe’s Shiba Inu ran over barking, skidding to a stop as he caught sight of the strange cat. The cat bristled and hissed and BB-8 stared at it, then at Poe.

“It’s okay, Beebee,” Poe said. “He doesn’t have anywhere to go.”

Poe thought the cat was male, at least. It wasn’t like he’d gotten a close look.

BB-8 approached the cat with his tail wagging but the cat clawed at him. BB-8 jumped back, barking sharply, and hid behind Poe’s calves.

“Come on now,” Poe said. “If you’re going to stay here you’re gonna have to be nice to my dog, okay? If anyone’s getting kicked out it’ll be you, Ginger.”

The cat gave Poe what genuinely came off as a long, considering look, and sat prissily on his haunches. BB-8 approached him, sniffing, and the cat allowed it.

BB’s tail started wagging again.

Poe smiled. “Okay, buddy, let me dry off this little monster and then you can go out and do your business.” He grabbed a hoodie hanging off a hook by the door and swept up the cat before he could run.

The cat yowled but Poe persisted, rubbing briskly to leach the rain out of his fur. When Poe backed off, the cat, fur sticking out every which way, ran down the hall and hid somewhere.

“Sorry, Ginger,” Poe called, laughing, and put BB-8 on his leash to take outside. He remembered his umbrella this time, not that it would do much good at this point.

When he and BB-8 returned, Poe took a quick detour into his bathroom to dry off as best he could and hang up his sopping jacket over the tub before going into the kitchen to get BB-8 his dinner. The cat was nowhere to be seen, but he crept out when Poe put down a dish of water and some leftover chicken.

Poe deliberately ignored him as he heated up last night’s pizza, giving the cat some space to relax. Thankfully BB-8 was being unusually laid-back as well, choosing to leave the cat alone and bother Poe instead. Poe put a box with newspaper in it in his living room to function as a litterbox and hoped the cat would use it.

When Poe sat on the couch with his pizza and turned the TV on, BB-8 jumped up next to him and settled down. A few minutes later, Poe saw the cat sneak in, sitting and watching them. Poe pretended not to notice, and eventually the cat laid down and slept.

-

In the morning, Poe put out a bowl of milk. The cat disappeared when Poe was ready to leave for the day, so he shrugged and left him inside.

BB-8 and a weird stray cat could co-exist peacefully in his apartment for a day, right?

-

Peace was relative, Poe decided later.

No one was bleeding. Poe counted that as a victory.

Honestly, he had never liked that vase. Probably the pillow had needed to be replaced anyway.

BB-8 gave him big, sad eyes the entire time Poe cleaned, as though to tell Poe how sorry he was. The cat sat up on a windowsill and meticulously washed his paws.

-

The cat made no indication of wanting to leave again the next morning. Poe took BB-8 on an especially long walk in an attempt to work out some of his excess energy.

“Behave,” Poe told them firmly. “Remember, Ginger, I can and will knock you on your ass outside. Beebee, don’t forget I’ve still got your cage.”

BB-8 barked.

The cat looked away, as though Poe wasn’t worth his attention.

-

His apartment at least didn’t resemble a crime scene that evening, though BB-8 still managed to appear guilty. Poe assumed he and the cat had had altercations.

Still, no blood, minimal mess.

A victory.

The cat slept next to his bed that night.

-

Poe’s foray into buying cat food was a failure. The cat refused to eat any of it and Poe ended up donating it all to the nearby shelter. (No, no one had come in looking for a mean orange cat.)

He bought lunchmeat and specifically cooked chicken on the weekend just so he could have something to put in the bowl; the cat accepted this as his due.

-

It happened so gradually so as to be almost unnoticeable.

In the evenings when Poe sat on the couch with his laptop or the TV, the cat would make himself comfortable on the old, squashy armchair, and eventually on the arm of the couch itself, on the opposite end from where Poe sat with BB-8 next to him. Then the cat began curling into a ball on the cushion, at least a foot from Poe and BB.

Poe would wake up with the cat near his feet when he stepped out of bed and the cat would pad after him down the hall until he got his breakfast. Sometimes he woke and noticed the cat watching him, perched on Poe’s desk.

Once Poe woke up with his arm thrown over BB-8 and a warm ball of cat at his feet; he was too startled to move and terrified to disturb the cat so he carefully stopped himself from shifting.

He came home from work to see the two of them, the dog and the cat, lying next to each other on the kitchen floor. BB-8 thumped his tail and didn’t move until the cat did; the cat sprang up and flounced off, as if to insinuate he had never done such a thing in the first place.

Poe was used to chattering to BB-8, telling him all about his day and whatever random crap he had on his mind. He started doing it with the cat, though, too. The cat was not as responsive a listener as BB-8 was, who always barked back and gave the impression of being deeply interested. The cat, instead, managed to look as though he found Poe deeply disappointing.

“Finn’s dating this girl who lives in his building, I’m having lunch with them tomorrow,” Poe would say, and the cat licked his foot as though bored.

“I managed to irritate Ben again,” Poe would say, while the cat looked down his nose from his perch on top of Poe’s fridge.

“I put out flyers all over the city and posted your picture online,” Poe would say, while the cat gave him what Poe wanted to call a horrified glare.

“Don’t tell me you like living with me and Beebee,” Poe said, and the cat turned on his heels to walk out of the room, tail in the air.

That night, as Poe watched a movie on Netflix, the cat slowly, oh so slowly, crept along the couch until he was pressed to BB-8’s sleeping form. Poe, equally slowly, reached out and laid his hand on the cat’s soft, warm back.

The cat let him.

-

The next day the cat bit Poe’s ankle when he took too long to put out his breakfast.

“Seriously?” Poe said, looking down.

The cat stared back, perfectly unrepentant.

-

No one seemed eager to claim a very well-groomed orange cat. Poe figured maybe BB-8 needed someone to keep him company during the day when Poe was out.

“I’m just gonna keep calling you Ginger, buddy,” Poe told the cat.

Ginger meowed in what sounded like disgust.

“Yeah, Ginger’s good,” Poe said, and the cat went to jump up on the table and lay down on top of Poe’s open book.

-

“He’s a very angry cat,” Finn said, washing his hand after Ginger bit him when Finn tried to pet him. BB-8 was leaning against Finn’s legs as if to say, _you should have just kept petting me._

“He’s a cat,” Poe said. “I think the cuddly ones are outliers. Mostly you have to force them. Ginger objects to being forced. Sometimes if I’m lucky he lets me touch his head.”

“Oh my God, Poe. You would end up with the reject cat no one wants.”

Ginger hissed from the window.

Poe looked over at him and felt sad, remembering the poor skinny thing out in the rain. Maybe he had been abandoned, dumped out into the world because he wasn’t enough like the cute little snuggly cats people posted videos of on the internet. “He just needed someone to care about him.”

Finn’s expression softened and he rubbed BB-8’s head before going over to clap Poe’s shoulder. “He’s lucky he found his way to your building.”

Maybe Poe was lucky, too. He liked having that long lump wedged against his feet when he woke up in the morning, and he liked the way Ginger always looked ashamed at getting caught before he pretended it had never happened. He liked that BB-8 had a somewhat pissy friend to play with and he even liked the judgmental way Ginger listened to him talk.

The apartment was too empty since Poe’s last messy break-up. Ginger was just filling it up again.

Poe and BB-8 and Ginger. That seemed right.

-

Poe had had a very long, very stressful day, which was why he felt he couldn’t be faulted for falling asleep on his couch with BB-8 panting by his thigh.

By the time he woke up, BB-8 had hopped down to the floor, asleep, and there was a surprising weight in his lap.

Ginger.

Poe blinked and rubbed his eyes, but he wasn’t dreaming or imagining things. Ginger was resting in his lap, seeming content as anything. Cautiously, filled with affection for this assholish orange cat who had somehow wormed his way into Poe’s life, Poe rested his hand on Ginger’s back and stroked. If Ginger was awake, he didn’t move.

Poe kept stroking him. He bent down and kissed the top of Ginger’s furry head.

Suddenly it seemed terribly light in the room, and there was a flash, and then Ginger felt ridiculously heavy and angular.

“It’s about time,” said an irritated, cultured, British accented-voice, the sort of voice Poe felt would be best described as poncey.

Poe looked into the face of the pale, red-haired, thirtysomething man who was somehow on Poe’s couch, half in Poe’s lap. “Uh,” he said. “Excuse me?”

BB-8 started barking, startled by the stranger in the room. Then he stopped, sniffing, and settled again.

“Beebee, if that’s honestly your reaction to a strange man appearing in our place, I’m disappointed,” Poe said.

“I smell the same to him,” the man said. He shifted over so that he was no longer in Poe’s lap.

Ginger was mysteriously absent.

A completely terrible explanation was blooming to life in Poe’s brain. He pushed it aside.

“You smell the same as what?” Poe asked, not exactly sure if he wanted the answer.

“The cat,” the man said with the sort of perfect disdain Ginger had mastered.

“Oh, hell, no,” Poe said.

BB-8 barked again and Poe said, “You’re not helping.”

The man was watching him with contained amusement.

Poe closed his eyes. When he opened them, there was still a strange man on his couch in place of his cat. “Ginger?”

Pursing his lips, the man said, “Hux, actually. Honestly, Ginger. Couldn’t you have picked something a bit more original, or at least less insulting?”

“This is not happening,” Poe muttered. “I’m still asleep, or something, or maybe I’m drunk. Did I have a few drinks? It was a bad day, I could’ve forgotten getting drunk, I--”

“This is unfortunately real. I was a cat. Now I’m not. I’ve been restored. Both our lives can resume normality.”

“You were a cat,” Poe repeated. “My cat. Who slept in my bed. I changed in front of you.”

“Not bad,” the man – Hux? – said, smirking.

“Oh, God,” Poe moaned, flushing. “How the hell were you a cat?”

“Considering how badly you’re taking this, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I think it will be best for your head if we just leave it at, I was accidentally turned into a cat but now you’ve fixed me.”

“Yeah, about that,” Poe said. “Did I do that? Actually me?”

“It would seem so.”

No one was saying the words ‘true love’s kiss’ out loud, that was for damn sure. Poe was going to choose not to contemplate the matter any further, though his brain was finally registering the fact that Hux was naked.

And obviously utterly unashamed.

Well, he didn’t need to be ashamed, to be honest.

“Do you, uh.” Poe swallowed. “Do you want some clothes or something? My last boyfriend was taller than me, he left some stuff.”

 _That’s it, Dameron,_ Poe told himself. Focus on the normal shit. Naked guy needed clothing. Poe could do that. Never mind why the guy was naked, or why he was here, or why he no longer had a cat. Find a problem, solve the problem.

“A necessity before I leave, certainly,” Hux said.

“Yeah, okay.” Poe stood up, trying not to look at Hux.

He heard Hux follow him to the bedroom, standing behind him as Poe rummaged through his drawers for sweatpants and a t-shirt. Somehow the idea of Hux in casual clothing seemed wrong, though Poe had never seen him in any sort of clothing at all. Maybe he was just thinking of how prissy Ginger had always been.

Ginger. Poe missed him.

Poe turned around and shoved the clothes at Hux, his brain trying to comprehend the idea that _this_ was Ginger.

“Thank you,” Hux said, though his nose wrinkled and he was giving the sweats an appalled look.

“I miss my cat,” Poe blurted out, and wanted to smack himself in the face.

Hux observed him, expression still and unreadable. “You said I was an asshole.”

Poe blinked. “You could understand that?”

“Of course I could,” Hux said, that haughty disgust all Ginger. “I was still me.”

“So you actually wanted to sleep in my bed?” _Ah, fuck, Dameron._

“Your bed was the most comfortable,” Hux muttered, but he was clutching his borrowed clothing in front of his crotch and a flush was building in his pale skin.

Suddenly feeling daring, Poe reached out and stroked his fingertips down Hux’s arm. “You were an asshole of a cat, but I liked having you around. I… When I kissed you,” he said, forcing the words out before he could stop himself, “I was thinking about how happy I was you were there, and how happy I was I’d found you, and how I hoped you’d never leave.”

“I’m not actually a cat,” Hux said, voice rougher than before.

“I know that now. But, hey. You said you were still you, so I figure, you must still be a stand-offish asshole who feels inexplicably warm towards me and whom I’d like having around anyway.”

Hux gaped at him. “You…”

“All I’m saying is,” Poe barreled on, “is that maybe I wouldn’t mind getting to know non-cat you. I mean, we’ve already seen each other naked _and_ slept together.”

“Christ,” Hux said.

Because he could, and because honestly, why the hell not? Poe leaned up and kissed Hux’s mouth, soft and brief. “I still might call you Ginger sometimes though,” he said, and laughed at the very Ginger-like face Hux made.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr [here](http://serceleste.tumblr.com). :)


End file.
